Giroux Named to ECAC Top 50 Team

Dec 20, 2010

Defenseman Honored During Anniversary Season

ALBANY, N.Y. - The 2010-11 season marks the 50th anniversary of ECAC Hockey. To celebrate its golden milestone, ECAC Hockey is naming its all-time top 50 players, releasing five names every two weeks. The second group came out this month and former Yale defenseman Ray Giroux '98 was on the list.

A 1998 All-America pick, Giroux captained the Bulldogs to its first ECAC regular season title that season while becoming the only player in conference history to earn player and defensive player of the year honors and the first Yale player to be ECAC Player of the Year.

Giroux, selected for the ECAC 1990s All-Decade Team, was a two-time all-conference pick and a 1997-98 Hobey Baker finalist, a first for a Yale blueliner. The two-time team MVP and three-time Yale defensive MVP notched 22 goals and 84 points (2nd for Yale defensemen) in 124 collegiate games.

The former Bulldog star competed in 38 National Hockey League contests with New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils before becoming a Kontinental (Russia) League All-Star. He is currently in his sixth season of Russian professional hockey and skates for Chelvabinsk Traktor.

The release of names for the Top 50 continues throughout the season leading up to the ECAC Hockey Championship weekend (March 18-19) at Atlantic City, N.J.

The top 50 players were determined by a 10-person selection committee that included Joe Bertagna (former ECAC commissioner), Ed Carpenter (legendary Boston University sports information director), Bill Cleary (former Harvard player, coach and AD), Boston Herald reporter John Connolly, ex-Colgate player and RPI coach Dan Fridgen, former Yale and Vermont coach Mike Gilligan, Lou Lamoriello (former player and coach at Providence), Mark Morris (former Colgate player and head coach at Clarkson), ex-Harvard player and Yale head coach Tim Taylor and College Hockey News editor Adam Wodon.

ECAC Hockey has been home to seven NCAA men's championship teams while producing more than 500 National Hockey Leaguers, nearly 300 All-Americans, three Hobey Baker Memorial Award winners and over 1,100 conference all-academic team (since 1999-00) selections.